Recent years have brought the emergence and rapid proliferation of mobile computing devices such as mobile telephones or “handsets” with extensive computing, communication, and input and interaction capabilities (“smart phones”) plus a growing array of other mobile computing devices such as touchscreen tablets, “netbooks”, electronic document readers, and laptops in a wide range of sizes and with wireless and wired communication capabilities. This proliferation of mobile devices has been accompanied by complementary advances in development and adoption of long-range wireless broadband technologies such as 3G and 4G, as well as commonplace deployment of shorter-range wireless technologies such as the 802.11 series of wireless standards and “Bluetooth” short-range wireless, all with considerable bandwidth. These technologies span multiple radio frequency bands and protocols. Alongside the radio transceivers for such communications capabilities, many of these devices also contain an array of onboard sensors such as cameras, microphones, and GPS receivers plus other locating technologies, as well as considerable fixed-onboard and removable memory for information and multimedia storage. Furthermore, smartphones and similar devices are typically capable of running a wide variety of software applications such as browsers, e-mail clients, media players, and other applications, which in some cases may be installed by the user. New devices with Internet connectivity, such as various sensors and internet-connected household appliances are becoming available, forming a broadly connected “Internet of Things”.
Along with the profusion of smartphones and other mobile, wireless-capable devices, there has also been a dramatic increase in the use of social networks and related technologies for information sharing for consumer as well as for professional uses. Furthermore, the possible professional and personal use of any given handset presents a complex set of usage contexts under which rules for device capability usage and information access need be considered. Such sophisticated devices and the complex network scenarios that they operate in provide new opportunities for sophisticated system for information anon selection and presentation. Current contextual news presentation services such as Google Now and Bing News are capable of presenting news such as traffic conditions and weather alerts to a given computing device in the context of parameters such as device location, filtered by user preferences. However, there exist substantial opportunities for a more broadly capable, secure information selection and presentation system with granular control of presented information in accordance with expressed requirements of multiple stakeholders, such as device users, emergency services groups, network operators, corporate governors, and regulatory bodies.